Power Core by AugusteTheClown
https://itch.io/embed-upload/552215?color=333333
Tower defense/action game made in 8 hours by Auguste and Mufin. WASD or arrows to control the player character. Pick up cells by running into them. Bring them to the core to recharge it or press Space to turn the cell into a tower that will defend your core. Towers only work inside the steadily shrinking power radius of the core. Game over screen not finished, restart the game if the core explodes.
| Windows | https://augustetheclown.itch.io/power-core |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/power-core-1 |
Ratings
| Overall | 568th | 3.136⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 634th | 2.818⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 573th | 2.81⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 663th | 3.091⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 20🗳️ | 23🗨️ |
I really like to see a tower defense game. I love this genre. But the game is way too easy after understanding it. Also sadly there is no gameoverscreen, music and sound. But for 8 hours the game is really good.
Would be nice to see it more fleshed out!
Like others said, it does get easy too quickly. It was the most fun in the first half a minute or so when I needed to figure out what everything does and set up a basic defense.
What I like:
- graphics
- multi functional energy
- difficulty
What would make me like it even better:
- a mouse + WSAD control (and not only WSAD)
- music
- sound effects
- a win condition
I think you're allowed to upload a version with a game over screen and some bug fix.
Cool game, as they say, maybe a bit too easy, you could make the enemies destroy the towers when they hit them or lose energy when you collide against an enemy
The graphics are simple but correct enough to understand what's going on and "what is what".
The game played smoothly, I caught no bug, the controls are easy to understand / use. I liked the "fluidness" of the game, you can move in circles, grab a cell, turn it into a turret grab an other cell and bring it to the core all in one big movement.
The concept is pretty interesting, a fun take on the Tower Defense genre. The realization is good. Maybe a bit too easy.
A lifespan for the turrets, or making them consume energy could help increase the difficulty or even a SuicidalMob that could take with him a turret or two when dying or charging on them or simply increasing the spawnrate of the mobs?
Adding a score or a body count could be a quick/easy addition that would let the player enjoy his Power Turret Empire.^^
Anyway, good job! :)
Anyway the game is working, great job :thumbsup:
That said, there are certainly a few things that could be done to improve it. The most important and simple to fix of these is the spawn-rate of the enemies. There needs to be some kind of curve so that the game becomes progressively more difficulty. It would also be nice to see the enemies taking more hits to kill the further you progress.
On another note, the control scheme is a bit of a pain to use. I know you posted exactly the opposite on my game, but you could really benefit from using a mouse-based control scheme! It would make playing feel a lot more flexible and far less clunky because you would be able to accurately change your direction in an instant.
Now, I know you also wrote the opposite for this as well on my game, and I guess it's simply a matter of taste, but I feel that your game could also easily benefit from an *'exposition dump'*. Context in a game can make even the simplest of gameplay mechanics and graphics mean infinitely more -- leading to a more satisfying, fantastical, and enjoyable experience for the player. For example, you could just be mindlessly killing monsters, or you could be hero saving an ailing kingdom from a scourge of murderous goblins... given the right context ;)
All in all, despite all my criticism I really did enjoy the game, and I feel like it could certainly be one of the best this jam if you had spent more than 8 hours on it :)
Keep up the good work -- I hope to see you around next Ludum Dare!
One of the first issues I found, is that there is absolutely no difficulty to it. This means that you can just make a wall of turrets around the core and you only need 3 or 4 shots to kill an enemy so you don't even need that many. Also, when you increase the range of the core, it increases it too much, such that you get to the point where it never runs out. This increase seems to be making the radius bigger each time, rather than the area, which I feel would have worked better.
I also think that enemies should spawn at an increasing rate as well as have more health to require more turrets to kill them. This would force the player to keep picking up new cells make new turrets and so make have to decide between powering the core and making new turrets.
Another problem is that the controls are kind of annoying, it would be much nicer if there was a mouse base control scheme where you could click to make the player to a point or just follow the mouse cursor. Having to turn the direction of the player is kind of awkward, even just making it so that WASD moved along the coordinate axis would be better, or that the player pointed to the mouse and then WASD moved based on that direction.
Overall, I feel that if these problems where fixed this could be a great game, and yes, I do understand that you only spent 8 hours making this so for this time, issues are sort of expected.